An Arca-Swiss 4x5 owned and used by Ansel Adams for four years in the 1960s and then given as a gift to his young Belgian friend Liliane de Cock is being auctioned off by Heritage Auctions. Starting bid is $35,000 and it's expected to sell for between $70k and $100k. Nice museum piece! I'm always happy to see old equipment preserved for posterity.
The whole story is at the link.
Mike
(I forget who tipped me to this but thanks!)
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Old and in the way,
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Featured Comments from:
Michael Perini: "Like everything Arca Swiss Makes, they were really wonderful cameras. I still have one of Liliane de Cock's books which I purchased new a long time ago . She did beautiful work."
May I just say, apropos of very little, that Old and in the Way was a damn good album.
Carry on.
Posted by: Steve Higgins | Thursday, 06 October 2016 at 01:13 PM
I have 2 of those Arca Swiss 4x5 cameras plus the 8x10 version as well. I guess I'm just keeping them around for the day that KODAK reinvents itself as a photography company and starts to roll out color negative film which in turn regenerates 100s of custom color labs at which point I will again set up my color printing darkroom and live happy as a clam ever after.
Posted by: Mark Hobson | Thursday, 06 October 2016 at 02:54 PM
I wonder if that camera has enough bellows for the Wollensak triple convertible at it's longer lengths which are 20" and 25.5".
I don't recall seeing any Adams work that looked like it was done with such long focal lengths.
Posted by: Doug Chadwick | Thursday, 06 October 2016 at 05:09 PM
Arca was my all round camera for quite a while.
I settled on a 5x7, which was a great format.
Posted by: Herb Cunningham | Thursday, 06 October 2016 at 06:43 PM
While others are drawn to Ansel's 4x5 my eye went to the Chicago Majestic tripod and geared head. I have owned two and they excel for product or still life. Like an old piano, sellers seem received to sell these hulks, so they can be inexpensive.
Posted by: Steve Walker | Thursday, 06 October 2016 at 06:58 PM
About 15 years ago I was in the Calumet San Francisco store and saw a used enlarger (memory is foggy but I think it was a large format Beseler). It had a red tape from one of those label makers on it that read "The private property of Ansel Adams, xxx 26th Avenue, SF." The selling price was about what you would expect for a used enlarger of that type. Maybe I should have bought it.
Posted by: Brian V. | Thursday, 06 October 2016 at 07:01 PM
I examined an 8x10 Sinar Norma from a private seller in S.F. Ca.....about25 or 30 years ago.......the price was 1500.00....which was a lot more than I had....it came with an extra 4x5 back....which had a label on it...property of Ansel Adams........i really wished I had borrowed the $ and bought it......just like I wish I hadn't given back an original Arbus 8x10 proof print that a friend had given me.The print was of her grandmother...never sold...never reprinted.....i gave it back as a courtesy ...when said grandma died....subsequently the proof has been verified...is one of a kind...has been published...and is worth God only knows how much $......
[The better known images sell for more, but if it was a vintage print made by Arbus herself in her darkroom, a rough estimate would be somewhere between $25,000 and $75,000. Really depends on the picture. --Mike]
Posted by: Gary Alessi | Saturday, 08 October 2016 at 06:17 PM